It was a scary scene at a Contra Costa County high school football game Friday night when multiple players left the field with concussions.
Now, parents are raising funds to provide more protection for players this season and beyond.
“Players were coming off the field in tears, very emotional, hard to see one of their close friends go through something like that,” said Stephen Parini.
He is a parent of one of the Alhambra High School Bulldogs and is describing the scene on Friday night after two players were taken off the field during the game with concussions.
One of the players was wheeled off on a stretcher.
“Me personally I hate to see it and I love football, I’ve coached football my entire adult like and it was just really difficult to process and see,” said Parini.
And it’s a big reason why he’s raising money to buy more protection for the team.
He’s starting an online fundraiser to get guardian caps for every player.
The cost will be around $6,000.
“Our coach has wanted to get these caps for a little while, these unfortunately weren’t in the school budget this season,” said Parini.
According to the guardian caps website, the cap’s soft shell cover attaches to football helmets — reducing the impact of hits during a game.
Nicholas Cecchi conducted a 2023 study on the guardian caps during his post-doc at Stanford University which showed some reduction in impact during simulations in a lab.
“There are certain impacts on the field that no head gear is able to prevent but improved helmet technology, reducing the severity of all these types of impacts, in our mind, is really a positive,” Cecchi said.
In a statement on the concussions, the district superintendent said:
“Student health and safety is always our number one priority. At this point, we have incomplete information. However, we follow all CIF protocols for student safety including those for any sport’s related injury. We will be looking further into this matter and taking the appropriate actions necessary.”
The players are both recovering but it could be weeks before they hit the field.
Parini hopes they’ll have more protection when they do.
“If it can prevent one concussion, then this is more than worth it for us,” Parini said.
Pete Suratos
Source link